AMYRALDISM, a name given by some writers to the doctrine of universal grace, as explained and asserted by Amyraldus, or Moses Amyraut, and his followers, among the reformed in France, toward the middle of the seventeenth century. This doctrine principally consisted of the following particulars, viz. that God desires the happiness of all men, from which none are excluded by a divine decree; that none can obtain salvation without faith in Christ; that God refuses to none the power of believing, though he does not grant to all his assistance, that they may improve this power to saving purposes; and that many perish through their own fault. Those who embraced this doctrine were called Universalists, although, it is evident that they rendered grace universal in words, but partial in reality, and are chargeable with greater inconsistencies than the Supralapsarians. Amyraldus is said to have formed his system with a view of producing a reconciliation between the Lutherans and Calvinists. This theory was supported in England by Baxter. See BAXTERIANISM. ANABAPTISTS, a name given to those Christians who maintain that baptism ought always to be performed by immersion; that it ought not to be administered to children before the age of discretion; and that at this age it ought to be readministered to those who have been baptized in their infancy. They affirm that the administration of this sacrament is neither valid nor useful, if it be done by sprinkling only, and not by immersion; or if the persons who receive it be not in a condition to give the reasons of their belief. The Anabaptists of Germany brought the name into great odium by their turbulent conduct; but by the people of this persuasion generally, the conduct of these fanatics was at all times condemned. In England they form a most respectable, though not a very numerous body. The word Anabaptist is compounded of ἀνὰ, new, and βαπτιϛὴς, a baptist; and has been indiscriminately applied to people of very different principles. Many of them object to the name, because the baptism of infants by sprinkling is, in their opinion, no baptism; and others hold nothing in common excepting some one or other of the above mentioned opinions concerning baptism. See BAPTISM. ANAGOGICAL. This is one of the four senses in which Scripture may be interpreted, viz. the literal, allegorical, anagogical, and tropological. The anagogical sense is given when the text is explained with regard to the end which Christians should have in view, that is, eternal life: for example, the rest of the Sabbath, in the anagogical sense, corresponds to the repose of everlasting blessedness.